By Tony Attwood
Previously in this series.
- Restless Farewell
- Long and Wasted Years
- Mississippi
- Foot of Pride
- Things have changed
- Angelina
- Visions of Johanna
- Drifters’ Escape
The point I am trying to make in this series is that although I can appreciate Dylan’s songs and always enjoy his music, I also feel that a small number of his songs have gone much further with me. So far, in fact, that just writing about the lyrics or the chords or the melody or Bob’s voice on the recording, isn’t enough, because something in each song has stayed with me and delivered to me an extra level of insight that I have not got from other composers, or indeed from other Dylan songs.
My last example was “Drifter’s Escape” which Dylan followed soon after with “Watchtower” the song that Hendrix took over and delivered a version of Dylan from another dimension. Which of course, Dylan then later reproduced.
In thinking of the songs that have influenced me for years, I also at this stage contemplated “When I paint my masterpiece” but quickly concluded that this song had not had the same impact on me as the songs I’ve previously mentioned.
In one sense, it was directly relevant to my life in that I was writing songs and books by the time this piece appeared, and having some success in one or two particular fields, and so a song about creating a piece of art, which I felt was a success, didn’t itself embrace me and take over my thoughts. And certainly my point here is not to write about the success I had as a writer, for although that was keeping me alive, it was hardly earth-shattering.
But there was a connection between what I was doing with my writing and Bob’s “masterpiece” song for I was starting to wonder if I was to have real big-time success in my work, and if so, what it would look like. I did, around this time, have more commercial success as a writer than I had ever previously experienced, and I was puzzled, for its main effect on me was to make me wonder what I should do next. Having written a book that was selling very well, and having an influence in its specialist market, what did I do next?
The two key songs of 1971 sounded to me as if they were about my struggles as a writer and the developing realisation that I would probably always be struggling to write the next “masterpiece” (not that any of my works were actual masterpieces,) as I was producing a few books and songs by this time which I was rather pleased with, and that I felt really worked.
So with Bob singing, “When I paint my masterpiece”, was he really telling us that no matter how good any piece of creative work was, even he, and perhaps other genius creators, were forever dissatisfied, forever wanting to do more, forever wanting to create something that went further?
And of course, I was worried that all I was doing was re-creating the works of others that had gone before. Yes I was writing books and songs, but would any of them ever turn out to be “my masterpiece”? It seemed extremely unlikely.
And then it struck me that Bob had himself already created a number of utter masterpieces. “Visions of Johnanna, “Desolation Row, “” Mississippi”…. works that were infinitely beyond anything I could create.
But it also struck me that “Masterpiece” was not itself a masterpiece by Bob – but rather a clever summary of where he, as a creative artist, had got to. After all, he didn’t know what he was going to do next. So in one sense, although I didn’t see this song as a great Dylan masterwork, it did teach me something that, although almost certainly no one else) as the regular, middle-of-the-road creative artist, not every work is going to be a great masterpiece. Indeed, the fact that I could then, as now, pick out certain key songs that had so deeply influenced me and stayed with me for years, showed that even different Dylan songs had different impacts. In short, I was not trying to write a series of masterpieces – I was trying to write one work which, within the context of my ability, was my masterpiece.
Of course, I knew that my own writing had a range within it from works I would be happy for others to know about, to works that really should be consigned to the bin. And it struck me that Bob must have a range as well – only of course his range was massively above mine. His “consign to the bin” songs were obviously nothing of the sort – they were still almost all masterworks, but just either not at the absolute standard of other songs he had created, or not in keeping with the other songs he was writing at that time. We all have our own range.
Now that may seem pretty obvious, but of course it comes from the fact that with each new album, others will criticise a songwriter even though they can’t do anything remotely as good as Bob. So they will comment negatively on some new work, forgetting that point, and just comparing recent songs with those written years before. As a semi-professional but mostly amateur songwriter myself, I knew how just because I had written a few songs last year that I rather liked, that didn’t mean I could repeat the trick this year.
And yet Bob could do it almost year after year.
So I listened to the 16 songs of 1972 and 1973 and enjoyed them, but also appreciated that if they were giving me a lifetime message, it was to the effect that even the man who I considered by far the greatest songwriter of the age, could not deliver a song each year that really, really did something ultra-special for me.
And why should he? Bob knew nothing about me or my life or my romantic adventures or my attempts at songwriting, or the books I was writing. What was I expecting? That he was writing for me? Of course, he wasn’t. But much more to the point, it suddenly hit me that just as in my own small way I could have times when it was hard for me to write something that I was pleased with, let alone proud of, so it was with Bob – although his standard of course was infinitely higher than mine.
And the question arose: if Bob’s output in terms of songwriting was indeed variable, how did he pull himself out of a dip?
I looked through my list of Dylan’s compositions in 1973 from “Goodbye Holly” to “Wedding Song”, and there was nothing that I would want to play to a non-fan as an example of his brilliance as a composer. And yet, and yet, suddenly in 1974 Bob came out with works of such utter genius that every note of every song and every performance is still with me.
And it hit me so hard – even a genius has to explore, try out different ideas, approach things from different directions. In short, even the genius has to wait for the right moment. I didn’t because I am not a genius. But Bob, yes he had to wait. And I think he knew. Not me personally of course, but he knew what he had done. He had written a song of life-changing proportions.